2nd May Spinney
2nd May Concert, St Teresa’s Hall
Tessa: What a fantastic night!
Mary Crane: A brilliant night and the songs written by Johnny and Richard will stay with me.
3rd May
Ouseburn Festival
People’s Theatre art Exhibition 24th February 2016
Ribbon Road 25 Spetember
Chillingham Road Primary Students
Here are some comments from year 3 and 4 about the assembly that you and Richard did.
Suzi : I found it fascinating, the way it was told and what had happened.
Hannah: They made it exciting because they were explaining things clearly and singing songs. I am keen to know more
Alice: I liked the songs because it was what happened in the olden days put into a song
Troy: One of the men was talking while one was hitting coal
Adam: I thought that some of the people could be ancestors of ours
Eden: I liked how we were shown pictures and they were so detailed, it reminded you what it was like in the past
Tino: I enjoyed the whole thing because I love history
Layla: I do like to learn about this stuff as it is interesting
Daisy: When I heard it was just down the road I found it worrying
Film Night
Fantastic evening at “film night ” under the fields of heaton : fantastic number of people ; great films good event all around X
Lanterns
A beautifully moving commemoration this evening. Thank you all so much. May light perpetual shine upon them. Katie wilson
Considering the ages of some of those that were lost so long ago it was Great to see such sterling support from the young people from Heaton Manor Cadets (Army and Police) in helping to marshall the event. Very well done to all!!! Joe Hedley
And thanks to Mr Ken Paterson, without whom this bringing together of so many diverse groups would not have happened. Michael Ewing
Heaton Main Suite at Northern Stage
A great evening, good to be part of it. Thanks to all the organisers.
Sue
Under the Fields of Heaton
It’s odd to say that I’ve had a lovely weekend commemorating a disaster, but there you go… The concert on Saturday night was a sell out with people packed into St Teresa’s Church Hall to hear Johnny Handle, Appletwig Songbook and Heaton Voices. One of the girls had to admit that she loved Johnny’s music but she had absolutely no idea what he was saying in between songs…. Geordie dialect a bit beyond her there! Another member of the choir posted that she had enjoyed discovering Handle – especially his old album cover:
Johnny’s new track to commemorate the disaster fits perfectly into the folk tradition and will hopefully be a long standing addition.
With my Mining Institute hat on, I sold books in the interval and chatted to people how I hope will come in and see the original maps and images behind the book and the slides. With my Heaton Voices hat on, I had to try and remember all the lyrics of these new mining songs which we have learnt specially for the Festival! Things were mostly successful, even for the songs which we only finished learning last week….
Then today there was a service of commemoration at St Teresa’s which was very moving. It’s a beautiful modern church, full of light. For me, the most poignant moment was seeing 75 candles brought to the altar because it really highlighted what 75 people actually look like rather than as a number of victims. It was particularly relevant as the range of ages was reproduced as well with ages from 6 to 80 represented in the procession just as there was in the victims.
All the music in the service had a theme of light, so Heaton Voices sang “May you See Diamonds” and then encouraged the congregation to join us and sing. People took it well and joined in and smiled! On the way out, one lovely lady caught me and gave me a hug and said “thank you so much for coming, and for being so enthusiastic! Just full of life – all of you!” I thought that was a very sweet comment, especially from a stranger!
After the service we were pleasantly surprised with cakes! There was a huge spread on in the Church Hall so thank you very much to everyone who baked. Sorry we had to run – the choir were all due at our weekly rehearsal! Despite the two gigs of the weekend, Richard had us all working hard learning “Waiting” – his piece on the Heaton disaster focusing on the lives of the widows who had to wait months for the bodies to be retrieved.
Thank you so much to everyone who helped make the weekend such a success; from the organisers and performers down to the audience who were so friendly.
Jennifer Hillyard
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